​At our recent HR & Recruitment Conference, Richard Hanwell, Managing Director of MorePeople, shared a message that Recruitment success is not when someone accepts the job. It’s when they are productive, confident and still with you a year later.

After nearly twenty years recruiting across food, agriculture and FMCG, Richard has seen a consistent pattern. Organisations invest heavily in attraction, assessment and selection - but too often treat onboarding as an afterthought.

And that’s where the real risk lies.

Research from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) highlights the scale of the issue:

• 27% of UK employers who filled roles in the past year had new starters fail to turn up on day one.

• 41% saw new hires resign within the first 12 weeks.

• Only 12% of employees believe their organisation delivers effective onboarding.

Despite the time and cost involved in hiring, many businesses are still getting the handover wrong.

In food, agriculture and FMCG, this problem is amplified. CIPD data shows that around 28% of people working in agriculture and related trades are in the same occupation as their parents. In other words, the talent pool is already narrow and often intergenerational.

When you attract someone from outside the sector - perhaps persuading them to relocate or retrain - and lose them within three months, that’s more than frustrating.

It’s a failure to protect a scarce resource.

The Cost of Early Attrition

Replacing an employee typically costs between 50% and 200% of their annual salary when you factor in recruitment fees, management time, training and lost productivity.

Hire someone on £40,000 and lose them within three months? The visible cost might look like £10,000 in salary. The true cost is often far higher.

In production environments, packhouses, farms and factories, a poor early experience doesn’t just affect budgets. It impacts:

• Output

• Safety

• Quality

• Team morale

And because our sectors are tightly connected, reputation travels quickly. One poor onboarding experience can quietly undermine future recruitment efforts.

Here’s the uncomfortable reality:

• Almost a third of employees decide in their first week whether they see a future with you.

• 70% decide within the first month.

• The most influential period is the first 44 days.

Onboarding is not administration. It is the moment someone decides whether they trust you, whether they belong, or whether they start browsing job boards again.

And it doesn’t begin on day one.

In truth, onboarding starts during the interview process and intensifies between offer acceptance and start date. Silence during that period creates doubt. Confusion on arrival creates regret.

At MorePeople, we don’t believe most organisations have a recruitment problem.

We believe many have an early-retention problem.

Attraction is challenging in our sectors. The talent pool is tight. So when you secure someone good, keeping them becomes disproportionately important.

That requires structure = and leadership.

What Good Onboarding Looks Like

Effective onboarding isn’t a single induction day. It’s a structured, 12-month process, typically covering:

1. Pre-boarding - maintaining engagement between offer and start date

2. First week integration - clarity, connection and confidence

3. First 90 days - measurable objectives and regular feedback

4. The first year - development, belonging and long-term alignment

But beyond frameworks and checklists, success comes from three practical shifts.

Three Shifts That Improve Retention

1. Design It Like a Customer Journey

Map the experience from offer acceptance to 12 months.
What does the new starter receive?
When do they hear from you?
What are they thinking and feeling at each stage?

If you wouldn’t accept that experience as a customer, don’t expect an employee to.

Candidates today have more choice - and more confidence - than ever before.

2. Make Line Managers Accountable

HR can design the process.

Line managers deliver it.

If managers are not accountable for early retention, onboarding will always feel secondary. Leaders set the tone for belonging, clarity and standards. Without their ownership, even the best-designed process will fall flat.

3. Measure What Matters

You measure recruitment metrics.
You measure absence and performance.

Do you measure onboarding?

Track:

• First-day no-shows

• 90-day attrition

• 6-month attrition

Introduce structured check-ins at day 7, day 30 and day 90. Don’t wait for the exit interview to find out what went wrong.

If you don’t measure onboarding, it quietly fails.

Recruitment and onboarding must align.

If recruitment promises opportunity, but onboarding delivers confusion, trust breaks immediately. The job description should align with 90-day objectives. There should be a clean handover between the recruiter, HR and line manager. Early follow-up reduces risk.

Because ultimately, recruitment is partly an emotional contract. If expectation and reality diverge too quickly, disengagement follows.

The Bottom Line

Recruitment doesn’t end when someone accepts the job.

It ends when they are productive, confident and committed.

In food, agriculture and FMCG - where the talent pool is tight, and every hire carries disproportionate value - retention is where the real commercial return sits.

Design onboarding with the same rigour you design recruitment.

In a scarce market, onboarding isn’t administration.
It’s risk management.
It’s leadership.
And it’s strategy.